Volturi's Bane
by a-delacroix
Summary: Added Ch 04. Beginning after the 3rd Twilight book and x-over with the 2007 updated version of the Bionic Woman TV show, this story explores how events would have changed if Bella had a bad accident and parts of her body were replaced with bionics.
1. Chapter 1

3/21/2010

Volturi's Bane

Author's Note:

I still have the updated 'Bionic Woman' TV show from a couple of years ago on my DVR. I was watching it again recently and I thought a Bionic Woman story might be fun to write. Lately, I have mostly been interested in cross-over stories, so I got to thinking what would be fun and different from what everyone else is doing. Plus I usually prefer to mix stories of different genres meaning mixing two magic-based stories seldom work in my opinion, but mixing a science story with a magic story can. Now, as a middle-aged guy, I know I am not supposed to like the Twilight series, but I have enjoyed listening to the audiobook version of the first three in my car (I haven't read the fourth book yet). So I thought a Bionic Woman – Twilight story might work. I mean with her enhanced strength, speed, vision, and hearing the Bionic Woman has similar abilities to the vampires and werewolves in Twilight.

This story is set shortly after the end of the third Twilight book since I haven't read the fourth book yet. It will almost immediately head off in a different direction than the book series, as I find it more fun to do original stories. At least for the first chapter, it is going to be told from Bella's perspective in a first person style, because I was curious if I could capture the 'feel' of the books.

Updated Note 6/27/2010 – I was originally calling this story 'Bella Swan, Action Figure', but I didn't really care for that. One of the few things I hate about the serialized form of fanfiction is that you have to pick the title right in the beginning before you necessarily know where the story is eventually going to go. With several of my other stories, I later came to wish I had picked a different title, but stuck with the original. This time I really didn't care for my original title and since there is only one chapter out there so far, I have decided to rename it 'Volturi's Bane' at the same time as moving it from the Twilight category to the Twilight-Bionic Woman crossover category. If you have already read 'Bella Swan, Action Figure', this first chapter is unchanged. I am feeling motivated to do another chapter, but I am about to leave on vacation so it may be the end of July before I get it written.

Oh, and the usual disclaimer, I own none of these characters.

Now, on with the story,

Duane

Chapter 1

Part 1

Bach's 'Largo' from the Concerto for Two Violins in D minor began. Alice had insisted on the traditional processional to go along with the turn-of-the-century wedding theme she had selected. A small quintet of two violins, a cello, a harpsichord, and one trumpet were situated just to the left of the altar.

As I watched, all two hundred guests turned in their seats on the white folding chairs set up in neat rows in the small glade behind the Cullen's house. As Jasper, Emmett, and Edward moved to their places at the front, I saw Carlisle clasp Esme's hand. They shared a quick smile before turning in their place in the front row to joined the rest of the assembly in looking back to the garland laced trellis through which the bridesmaids and I would make our entrance.

Rosalie flashed me a brilliant smile before turning and striding majestically down the white satin runner which formed the central aisle of the make-believe chapel in the woods. Rosalie had ultimately gotten into the spirit of the wedding and had insisted on selecting the bridesmaids' dresses since Alice had selected the wedding gown. Now she and Alice were adorned in pale gold gowns, which Rosalie claimed best suited her hair, but which I thought better matched the gold-colored eyes the Cullen clan all sported today.

Rosalie was halfway down the aisle when Alice reached over and clasped my hand. "This is your day, Bella. I hope it is everything you dreamed it would be."

Vampires can't produce tears like humans, but at the moment Alice's golden eyes shimmered in a way I had never seen before. After a final quick grin in my direction, she forced a more somber expression onto her face before taking her turn in walking down the aisle.

"Are you ready, Bells?" asked Charlie from beside me.

I glanced over at him as he stood there in his rented black tuxedo. I didn't think I could ever picture him in anything but his sheriff's uniform or perhaps his fishing gear, but at this moment my father seemed to almost glow.

Then I took a moment to reflect on his words. Was I truly ready to marry Edward? I had fought against this day for much of the past year. Oh, it wasn't that I didn't want to be with Edward for the rest of my life or more accurately the rest of my upcoming undead existence. No, I had wanted that on at least some subconscious level since the day I found out about Edward's true nature. But wanting to be with him wasn't the same as wanting the whole formal wedding and marriage rigmarole. However in the end I had capitulated to Edward's desire and then had forced myself to wholeheartedly participate in the seemingly endless preparations.

And focusing on the wedding preparations had helped distract me from thoughts of the upcoming event that would form my true everlasting commitment to Edward – my transformation from human to vampire. Deep in my heart I knew I still wanted it more than ever, but it didn't prevent thoughts of how it could all go wrong. What if I didn't survive the transformation with my mind intact? What if I turned into some slobbering monster? What if I came back to Forks and destroyed my father and all my former classmates and friends?

Quickly to distract myself from the potentially endless loop my mind frequently got trapped in when started down this path, I glanced up to the small altar where Edward patiently stood. And it reminded me of the reward that made the risk worthwhile – getting to spend the rest of eternity with my true love. Or if not eternity, at least thousands of years like the ancient Volturi.

"Yes, Dad," I responded, as I clasped his proffered elbow. "I'm ready."

Charlie took a moment to stare into my eyes before giving a small nod. Then he led me over to the entrance to the fairy-tale chapel and paused for a moment beneath the trellis, as he waited for the current musical selection to end and Wagner's Bridal march to begin. As always, Alice had outdone herself with the decorations. Even with all the impossible speed and strength of the vampires at her disposal, this time it hadn't been enough. No, after I had first seen the twenty-five thousand white streamers hanging down from every branch of every tree surrounding the impromptu chapel, I had gotten her to admit to hiring three crews with cherry pickers who had spent the last two days working from dawn to dusk.

Pulling my attention down from the nearly solid white canopy formed by the streamers, I took a deep breath as the congregation all rose to their feet. Then, as the traditional music began, I found myself wondering for the hundredth time why we hadn't simply eloped, even though it would have been patently impossible to thwart Alice's gift. I forced a big smile onto my face before taking the first step down the aisle.

Step. Pause. Step. Pause. The march down the aisle somehow managed to be both interminable and yet ever so brief.

My stride only faltered once on that trip to my ultimate destination. Halfway down the aisle, my eyes flicked passed Charlie and abruptly I spotted Jake and his entire clan lined up in one of the rows. What was he doing there and how was it I hadn't spotted him until this moment? As always he and his wolf brothers towered at least a head taller than anyone else at the ceremony, so why hadn't I seen him when I had scanned the crowd over and over during the last twenty minutes?

The rest of the Quileutes were decked out in their finest Native American garb, but Jacob was dressed in the traditional black suit and tie. For a moment it made me think he was dressed for a funeral rather than a wedding. But then I realized from his perspective a funeral was probably closer to the truth than I cared to admit. He knew it was my intention to be turned as soon as possible and he had said I would then be dead to him.

And that was why I had explicitly told Edward and Alice my one serious stipulation before going through with the whole wedding ceremony was that I wanted final veto authority over the guest list and I didn't want Jake to be invited. I still cared for him and didn't want to put him through today's whole ordeal. And I knew if he was invited, he would feel compelled to attend.

Even as I continued the slow steady march up the aisle, I shot a glance up to Edward, as he had to be the one who had sent the invitation to the Blacks and the rest of the Quileutes. Perhaps it was fortunate Edward couldn't 'read' my mind like he could everyone else, or he wouldn't be standing there with the utterly serene expression on his face.

Five more paces and we were level with the first row of chairs. We paused and Charlie lifted the sequin-covered veil away from my face and smoothed it down over the back of my head. Then he leaned down and kissed me on my cheek.

"I am so happy for you, Bella," he whispered before straightening and moving to the vacant chair next to Renee, my Mom, and her second husband, Phil.

For a moment I just stood there and basked in the warmth and sincerity behind Charlie's words. This had been the whole reason I had agreed to the large formal wedding – to give Charlie, Renee, and all my old friends a sense of closure and a final happy memory of me. For after I was turned, I knew it would be a very long time, if ever, before I would see any of them again.

With a final tear-filled nod to my parents, I turned forward to where Edward and the rest of the bridal party waited. Edward smiled as soon as our eyes met and then he extended his left hand towards me. I quickly reached out my right hand and felt Edward's cool touch. Gently and ever so gracefully, Edward guided me to my position beside him. Surprisingly, I made it without a single stumble.

"Friends and family," began old Reverend Mason, the Methodist Minister in Forks. I had been surprised after all of his comments about his lacking a soul to learn Edward had been attending services at the Methodist Church almost the whole time the Cullens had been back in town. And I was even more surprised when both Reverend Mason and Edward had insisted we go through the traditional pre-wedding counseling.

But none of the things discussed during those meetings were on my mind at the moment. Nor were the actual words the minister was saying, as they seemed to drift passed me just beyond my grasp. No, suddenly my eyes were again tearing up and my throat was so tight and constricted I was certain I would be unable to say my vows when we reached that point in the ceremony.

In reaction to my mental state, my nails must have been digging into Edward's hand like claws, but he merely ran his thumb along the outer edge of my hand in a calming manner. I focused my entire attention on the way his thumb caressed my skin until I felt like I was getting myself under control.

Turning my attention to Reverend Mason's words, I realized he was just getting to the point where the congregation is asked if anyone has 'just cause' why we could not be lawfully married.

And then I heard what I had never expected. Jacob called out in a loud, yet calm voice. "I do."

If there were going to be any 'I do's' this afternoon, they were supposed to come from me and Edward, not the congregation.

A startled gasp rippled through the two hundred assembled people, as everyone in attendance turned to stare in Jake's direction.

Slowly, Jake stood. Towering over everyone else, he stretched out his right hand and pointed at Edward.

I heard Edward let out a low growl as his gift gave him forewarning as to what Jacob was about to say.

"Don't do it, dog," Edward hissed so softly no one except the vampires and werewolves could have heard it. And, of course me, since my face was barely a foot from his.

But if Jake heard Edward's warning, he paid it no regard. "Edward Cullen is an inhuman monster. Hell, they all are. This ceremony needs to be stopped."

I couldn't believe Jake was doing this in the middle of my wedding. He knew I wanted to be with Edward more than life itself. And he had to know this interference at best would only slow things down, but not stop anything if my heart was set on going through with it.

And no one was going to believe such an outrageous claim about the Cullens – particularly since half the town, or at least half the people in attendance today, knew of the bad blood between Edward and Jacob. No, they would all chalk it up to a case of sour grapes.

Then in a coincidence so unlikely, it almost seemed like it couldn't be a coincidence, the nearly impossible happened. At that moment a brilliant ray of unfiltered sunlight found its way through the thick canopy of trees and hanging streamers and struck Edward and his family. Immediately, their skin began to sparkle and shine like they were coated with thousands of tiny diamonds.

For at least ten seconds an unnatural silence held. Then it was broken by a child's sharp exclamation. "Look, Mommy, they glitter." I think it was Mike Newton's little sister, Sara.

"They are monsters," repeated Jake.

I tore my eyes away from Jake and looked at Edward. How anyone could consider Edward a monster at this moment when he looked more than anything like an angel was beyond me.

But then I saw Edward's eyes abruptly change from gold to black and then on until there was even a hint of red and I was suddenly afraid.

"You WILL pay for this, dog," Edward snarled, this time loud enough for everyone to hear.

He had barely taken a single step forward and I was just trying to put a restraining hand on his arm, when Jake abruptly released a deafening bellow and then with a sudden ripping and rending of cloth transformed into the wolf in front of everyone.

After more than a year of dancing around each other, they were finally going to fight and right in the middle of my wedding. It was like my worst possible nightmare was coming true.

Part 2

For a moment the tableau remained frozen with Edward and Jacob lunging towards each other and everyone else beginning to pull away in sudden terror. And then everything began to fade away - the congregation, the trees, the Quileutes, the Cullens, my parents, Jake, and last of all, Edward. Finally all that seemed to be left was the multitude of white streamers and then everything faded to white.

What was happening? For a moment there was nothing but an all encompassing white. Then slowly I began to make out what sounded like electronic equipment making an assortment of beeping and buzzing sounds which seemed vaguely familiar. Then voices entered into the mix and while I couldn't immediately make out individual words, I recognized the frantic, hectic timbre. I was in an emergency room like I had been so many times before in my life.

Struggling to shake off the impossible lassitude that was encompassing me, I tried to take stock of my situation. And that's when I became really afraid. I couldn't feel my arms or legs. And my head was pounding like the time my body had been beaten against the rocks after I jumped from the cliff into the ocean. But this time I wasn't seeing the soothing image of Edward I had been searching for on that previous occasion.

Fighting for more contact with the real world, I forced my eyes open or at least my left eye, as the right one seemed to be taped shut and I was suddenly aware of a sharp pain in it as though a knife had been jammed in hilt deep.

At first all I saw with my one partially functioning eye was red. Blinking rapidly, seemed to wash enough blood away until I could make out vague shapes.

I was lying flat on my back. Much of my limited field of view was blocked by a ventilation mask covering my nose and mouth and the balloon shaped bag that was slowly inflating and collapsing. Occasionally, blurred forms would pass through my field of view.

And then I realized through my haze the nightmare wedding had been just that, a nightmare. The actual wedding was still three weeks away.

More of my memories slowly slipped in around the edges of the pounding in my head. I was in San Francisco. Alice had insisted we come down here shopping for the final 'special' items needed for the wedding and, more importantly, the wedding night. She had been insistent on today as she foresaw dreary, wet weather all day, which would allow her to be safely out and about.

I had finally agreed to come to appease her, but after our arrival at the airport, everything became hazy. All I could remember was that my extreme lack of coordination had once again struck. Somehow I had ended up falling into the street in front of a speeding car. I remembered hitting the hood of the car and rolling over the top. I think I may have been hit by a second car and then everything had gone blank.

Slowly my mind was drawn back to the present as I realized my view of the white ceiling was mostly blocked by a large blob of turquoise. I blinked my eye again and it was just beginning to resolve into a human face mostly obscured by a cap and mask heavily splattered with blood, when the face pulled away.

As if from a great distance, I heard a voice say, "Doctor, I think she is coming around."

"Damn it, Chris," came the reply. "Get her under. We don't have time for her to be awake if we are going to have any hope of saving what's left of her life. Kelly, where's that bone saw?"

I saw a hand move into my field of view and begin turning valves on the control panel for the tubes leading to my oxygen mask.

I felt my panic rising at the Doctor's careless words. What did he mean by 'what was left of my life'? How extensive were my injuries?

And where was Alice? I had no recollection of her being there at the accident, but I had little recollection of anything except the speeding white car. But why hadn't Alice foreseen the accident and been able to prevent it?

Slowly I felt my consciousness slip as the anaesthetizing gases in my breathing mixture began to take effect. I wanted my last thoughts to be of Edward holding me, but I found myself back at the beginning of the wedding dream. Wagner's Bridal Chorus was just beginning and the congregation was rising from their seats, as I slipped away.

Part 3

I awoke with an abrupt feeling of clarity. Normally, I am slow to come awake and it takes at least five minutes before I seem fully functional. And on particularly bad days it takes a shower and a cup of coffee before I am truly alert.

But not today, as I opened my eyes my last memories immediately came rushing back. I had been in an emergency room very seriously hurt.

Quickly, I scanned the room. I was lying in a hospital style bed in a relatively large room of at least twenty by thirty feet. The walls were solid unpainted concrete without a single window and only a couple of heavy steel doors in adjacent walls. Both of these doors were currently closed. One wall contained a large recessed mirror that looked like a one-way observation window from some cop show or a bad spy movie.

The room had three other occupants, all of them women. Two of them were dressed in standard medical scrubs and were focused on a bank of electrical equipment along the left hand wall. The third was a woman who looked to be in her mid-twenties and was dressed in a pair of jeans, a light blue pull-over shirt, and a short black jacket. She had been sitting in a battered old leather chair in the far right corner, but now that she could see I was awake, she rose to her feet.

As she walked closer to the bed, I studied her face. She had straight black hair extending down just passed her shoulders. She had light blue eyes, high cheek bones, and a pale complexion. She was extremely beautiful. Well, extremely beautiful for a human. If Rosalie, Esme, or Alice was in the same room, she would barely rate a second glance. But compared to someone plain and average like me, she was stunning.

"Hello, Bella, how do you feel?" the woman asked as she half leaned, half sat along the edge of the bed.

"Where am I? Who are you? Where's my friend, Alice?" I asked ignoring her question.

The woman turned and glanced at the large mirror for a moment before looking back down at me. "You were very severely injured in a hit-and-run accident. Saving you, or at least leaving you with a useful body, was beyond the capabilities of the doctors at San Francisco General. Therefore, since you met some of the requirements of our organization you were transferred here for treatment. This is the Wolf Creek Biomedical Research Institute, a facility managed and funded by The Berkut Group. This facility is located about thirty miles north and a little east of San Francisco.

"As for me, my name is Jaime. A little over three years ago, I went through much the same procedures as you did. Therefore it was decided I might be the best person to have this initial conversation with you.

"And as far as your friend, Alice, I'm afraid I know nothing about her, but I will be happy to make inquiries."

The other woman, this Jaime, paused for a moment before continuing. "Now, how are you feeling? How do your arms and legs feel? Can you wiggle all of your fingers and toes?" Then she proceeded to move her hands in demonstration in a pattern that looked like she was playing scales on a piano.

It seemed like a childish request, but I decided it was best to humor her for a moment in hopes to get past this and on to more important things like locating Alice and getting a message to Edward or Charlie to let them know where I was and that I was okay.

I began lifting my hands from where they were lying on top of the sheet spread across my body. I was just about to perform the demonstration the woman had requested when I suddenly realized the tingling in my right hand I had experienced ever since James had bitten me was gone. I stared down at my hand and slowly turned it so I could see first the top and then the bottom. The whole scar was gone.

"I had a big scar on my hand," I said at barely more than a whisper as I continued to flip my hand back and forth.

Jamie reached over and clasped my hand in hers and then squeezed almost painfully hard to get my attention.

"Bella, your arms and legs were mangled when the second car ran over you. They couldn't be saved; they had to be replaced."

"What do you mean replaced?" I asked not yet understanding what the other woman was saying.

"This facility is on the cutting edge in the field of synthetic organ and limb development."

Suddenly, it began to sink in. "You replaced my arms and legs with prosthetics?" I could feel a panic attack coming on. What had these people done to me?

"Bella," the other woman almost shouted as she grabbed my shoulders to restrain me, as though she thought I was going to go crazy, and perhaps I was.

"Bella, do your arms and legs feel like machines or do they feel like your arms and legs? Trust me, I know. As I said, the same thing happened to me three years ago. I went a little crazy at first just like you, but eventually I got past it and you will, too. Your synthetic arms and legs look just like the real thing. They will respond like the real thing. They will feel like the real thing. Go ahead, wiggle your fingers, do they feel any different?"

I could feel my eyes tearing up and rather than wiggling my fingers I clenched them into fists. But they did respond just like the woman said. I could feel the fingertips pressing against my palms. I could feel the fingernails digging in slightly. I commanded my hands to open again and they responded just like my real hands. And except for the missing scar, they did look just like my real hands. Had my arms really been replaced or had they just managed to remove the scar and were now playing mind games on me?

I let my hands drop back to the bed. "What is going on? Why did you do this to me?"

The other woman stared into my eyes for a moment and then slowly released the grip she had been maintaining on my upper arms, as though she had decided I wasn't about to go berserk in the next couple of seconds. Then she turned to the large mirror and gave a short nod.

I lay there staring at her for another fifteen seconds until one of the large steel doors swung open and a balding, fiftyish man stepped in carrying a blue manila folder. He quickly crossed the wide room before stopping a good five feet short of the bed.

"Bella Swan? My name is Jonas Bledsoe. I run this operation."

"Mister Bledsoe, you need to let my family, my fiancé know where I am," I said with a pleading tone. I think that was the first time I had ever referred to Edward as my fiancé out loud, which told at least me how shook up I was.

"We will handle that shortly. We have no intention of keeping you here indefinitely. We just need to come to an understanding of what we expect in return for the enhancements we have given you, which will let you lead a normal life instead of spending it as a quadruple amputee in some nursing home."

The woman had implied the same thing about the damage I had suffered in the accident, but had never put it so baldly. Suddenly, I couldn't get the image out of my mind of lying in some bed with my arms and legs hacked off.

"Jonas!" the woman said sharply to the man before turning to me. "That's why I wanted to be here. The bedside manner of some of these people is . . . utterly atrocious."

I almost felt a small grin forming on my face for the first time since awakening here. Obviously, the woman had wanted to use a more colorful four letter adjective, but had restrained herself.

"Sorry," responded the older man with only a hint of contrition in his voice. "As I was saying, your replacement limbs, eye, ear, and assorted other internal repairs cost this organization just over sixty-two million dollars. And I'll be frank, we don't do charity work. You will be working for us for the foreseeable future."

His 'foreseeable future' remark brought thoughts of Alice back to the front of my mind. Why hadn't she foreseen the accident? Why hadn't she seen where they had taken me?

I shook my head. "I have to let my family know I am alright. They must be going crazy with worry. How long have I been here? Weeks? Months?"

The woman shook her head and then appeared to peer off into space for a couple of seconds. "No, you arrived by helicopter from San Francisco General fourteen hours, thirty eight minutes ago."

Now it was my turn to shake my head. "Is this all some kind of sick joke? I may have just graduated from high school and I may not know a lot about technology or medicine, but I know you can't replace half of a person's body and then have them completely healed in fourteen hours."

The woman grinned. "This is not the 1970's. People go in for heart bypass surgery one day and go home the next. It is the same way here. Part of the secret of this new process is that about a quarter of your blood has been replaced with anthrocytes. They are molecular scale machines that help your synthetic body parts interface with your natural body parts. And as a side benefit they allow your body to heal incredibly fast. And, while we don't have a long enough database to be one hundred percent certain, the anthrocytes also appear to arrest the body's natural aging process. So not only is your body better than new, but you may stay young forever."

I just stared at the woman. What she seemed to be implying was that I suddenly had the primary advantage of the vampires without any of the associated drawbacks. Oh, Edward was so going to love this, if it turned out to be true.

"Now, if we could get back to what I was saying," began Bledsoe again. "In return for what we have done for you, we expect you to carry out assignments for us."

"Why did you pick me for this? I mean I just graduated high school and live in a small town up in Washington State. There must be a lot of better candidates than me."

Bledsoe glanced at his watch then took two steps away to grab a straight backed chair and pulled it over close to the bed.

Sitting down, he responded. "First, for technical reasons I don't personally comprehend, at present the process seems to work better on women than men. Second, we have tried the process on military personnel in the past, but something about their mindset seems to drive them crazy. Jamie, here, who was a bartender before joining us, was our first real success. Third, a petite woman is less likely to be suspected of having superhuman abilities."

"What do you mean 'superhuman abilities'?" I asked.

The other woman grinned. "Oh, I didn't get to the good part yet. All of your enhancements haven't been brought on line yet or brought up to full power. But you will be about twenty times as strong as a normal person, be able to run seventy miles an hour virtually all day, have vision two hundred times better than anyone else and hearing five hundred times better. And that's only the easy to explain advantages. There are also a bunch of computer augmentations as well."

My god. It sounded like I would have all the advantages of a vampire and none of the drawbacks like a reaction to sunlight or needing blood.

While I was ruminating on what the woman had said, Bledsoe had opened the folder he had been carrying. "Finally, were you or weren't you in Volterra, Italy on March 20th of last year?"

I was so surprised by this unexpected turn in the conversation, I'm sure my mouth dropped open.

"How do you know about that?" I stammered.

He shrugged. "We have access to all passport and visa activity via the Homeland Security Department. Finding that you flew from Seattle to Florence, traveled straight on to Volterra and then boarded a return flight for the States less than twelve hours later was enough for an initial sign-off on your procedures.

"I have had a team researching you and your boyfriend, sorry, fiancé, Edward Cullen, and his family for the last fourteen hours. I think you may find this dossier interesting reading."

He paused to close the cover on the folder before looking me directly in the eye. "I intend to give you a series of assignments to help you fully develop all of your new abilities and they will all be important tasks, but they are only stepping stones to your long term assignment. The Volturi possess too much power. You are going to help me take them down."

The fact this Bledsoe even knew about The Volturi and by implication the world of vampires was shocking. But nowhere near as shocking as the audacious concept of going up against them with the idea of unseating them. For good or evil, The Volturi had been the secret powers behind mankind's thrones for thousands of years.

And as that thought percolated through my head I almost forgot what these people had done to my body. Almost.

End of Chapter 1

Please drop me a review or PM telling me what aspects of the story you like or what parts you hate.

Have a great day,

Duane


	2. Chapter 2

7/17/2010

Volturi's Bane

Chapter 2

Part 1

The trees flashed by me on both sides as I raced through the forest easily hurdling fallen tree trunks and other obstacles. I wasn't certain if I was truly moving as fast as when Edward carried me, but I was definitely running way faster than I had ever been able to run before.

I had been following Jaime, the woman I had met barely two hours earlier, for fifteen minutes as she led the way; moving steadily deeper into the wooded hills which surrounded the facility where I had awoken after the accident. Finally, as we entered a small clearing that reminded me a lot of the protected glade to which Edward and I frequently retreated so he could be safely in the sunlight, Jaime ground to a halt. I paused beside her and glanced quickly around before letting my eyes settle on her. She wasn't even breathing hard and then I realized neither was I.

"Wow," I exclaimed as I took another look around the clearing. A late morning beam of warm California sunlight shafted down between the trees and I knew if Edward was here his granite hard skin would be sparkling and shimmering. Jaime's skin seemed to have a faint glow after the subdued lighting of the forest, but not the intoxicating luster a vampire would display. As she stood next to me dressed in just a tank top and running shorts, I took a moment to inspect where her right arm joined her shoulder. There was no visible sign of where the synthetic limb ended and her natural skin began.

"How far did we run?" I asked.

Jaime smiled. "This is as good a time as any to start learning about some of your other enhancements. Your system includes an audio and video link that will allow you to communicate with the staff back at the facility. When my system was first brought online, this link was under their control, but after a lot, and I mean a lot, of complaining on my part it was revised so only I could initiate contact. You can't imagine how annoying it is to be in some private, perhaps embarrassing moment and suddenly you start hearing voices in your head and realize some voyeur back at the base is seeing everything you are seeing through your artificial eye and hearing everything you are hearing through your artificial ear."

Jaime shook her head. "But at least that's one battle you won't have to fight. I'll explain how to open a channel to them in a minute, however there is a way to answer a lot of questions without dealing with the base directly. See, the system also includes a rudimentary artificial intelligence that takes care of a lot of the behind the scenes things needed to keep your body running at one hundred percent. There is also a large database of information on just about anything you might need to know which you can access through the A.I. It was originally designed as a combat tool and that is its main focus, but some of its features are useful in other circumstances.

"It responds to verbal commands, which is usually sufficient, although occasionally you will be in situations where even a whisper may give you away. There are a couple of nonverbal ways to interface with the system, but they take some practice. So for now let's just start with the verbal access.

"You need to pick a keyword that isn't likely to come up in normal conversation to notify the system you are about to give it a command. For the moment, yours is set to the default word 'Brainiac' from the Superman comics, but you can change it to something else later. And the A.I. is keyed to your voice and simultaneously monitors the movement of your larynx so it will only accept input from you even if someone else has a recording of your voice.

"So, you might start by saying, 'Brainiac . . . where am I and how far am I from the facility?'"

Jaime paused and looked at me. I felt sort of silly, but I forced myself to repeat her words. "Brainiac . . . where am I and how far am I from the facility?"

I don't know what I was expecting, maybe a voice in my head or something, so I almost jumped when a satellite map like something from Google appeared in my field of view. It appeared to be floating in space to Jaime's left about five feet from me and looked about the size of a plasma TV. The location of the facility was highlighted with easy to read text. A curvy dashed line, which must have been the path we had taken as we followed the contours of the hilly terrain, extended to a spot marked with a red X. Beside the red X was a notation that our path had covered twenty-seven miles while the straight line distance to the facility was eighteen miles.

My mouth must have dropped open, as Jaime said, "Pretty cool, right?"

I just mutely nodded my head.

"Okay, next say, 'Brainiac . . . head's up display on."

I repeated her words and abruptly the left edge of my field of view was filled with a vertical row of icons and text.

"This is how you can access some of your built-in enhancements as well as get status on the system's health and functionality. It defaults to icon plus text, but once you have learned the icons you can turn off the text so it isn't cluttering up your field of view. You should be seeing a small red dot at the center of wherever your eye is focused. If you center the red dot on an icon and blink once, it will activate the icon and either perform the underlying function or open a further list of options if that is applicable."

I scanned down the list. Some of the functions like infrared and night-vision where obvious, but others not so much.

"What's 'Augmented Reality'?"

"Well, you could try it out here in the forest, but it wouldn't do much except overlay info about the types of trees and other plant life into your field of view. Like much of the system, it was originally designed as a combat aid. It will overlay info about any weapon in your field of view, but will also overlay info about other things in your field of view from the online sources coming available from Google and others. There are filters you can use to limit the amount of data it displays so it isn't overwhelming. Like everything else, it takes a little practice to master."

I nodded, "And 'Combat Mode'?"

"Ah, that one is a little scary. By using it, you let the A.I. take control of your body when you are in a combat situation. It can be useful if you acquire a gun you have never seen before and need to quickly disengage the safety and fire it. But if I have a few seconds, I prefer to let the A.I. just talk me through the procedure. The only time I have really used it outside a training exercise was on a mission to Japan. I ended up confronting eight guys with Samurai swords. They were guarding a girl I had been sent to retrieve and there was no way around them using just my superior speed and strength. Since I had never used a sword before, I engaged 'Combat Mode'. Damn scary to watch your hand reach out and pick up a sword and then feel your body race forward into battle. Anyway, I would suggest skipping that one until you get some practice sessions."

I felt a shudder pass through my body. I had come to San Francisco yesterday to acquire a few special items for my upcoming wedding and now I was in a conversation about the combat capabilities of my body. For a moment it almost pushed learning about the existence of vampires and shape shifters to second place on my personal weirdness scale.

Then my eyes scanned further down on the list of options that seemed to float out in front of me.

"Cellphone? You mean I could call Edward, my boyfriend, right now?" I blurted out.

"Technically, yes. When they incorporated the two-way audio and video capability to communicate with the facility, it wasn't much more difficult to include cellphone capabilities. But you agreed to give us three hours before contacting your family to explain the situation and we still have two hours and six minutes of that time left. And there are other things we need to cover before you are too distracted."

I nodded, but couldn't help but think that this one aspect of my new enhancements would be every teenage girl's dream – having a cellphone that was always with you that could never be lost or taken away by pissed-off parents.

Part 2

I was just about to respond when I heard a faint scream in the distance. Immediately an 'augmented reality engaged' message flashed before my eyes and then a red arrow appeared in the center of my field of view pointing off to my right and next to the arrow was a range estimate of 2.5 miles.

Jaime must have gotten a similar message, as she said, "Come on, we better check it out." Then she headed in the direction the arrow was pointing at a run.

I raced after her and abruptly my vision was overlaid with tons of data like you saw in the old Terminator movies when they were showing the world from the machine's perspective. Perhaps to someone like Jaime, who had had these capabilities for years, it all meant something and was useful. But to me it was merely a distraction and I was afraid it was going to cause me to trip and stumble. And I had always had a problem with that even before these new distractions.

Since I knew the command to turn the display 'on' I could easily guess the command to turn it all 'off'. But I wasn't certain I wanted to turn everything off. Jaime had mentioned the ability to filter how much data was displayed, so I gave that a shot first.

"Brainiac . . . less data," I shouted. Although that volume probably wasn't necessary, at a dead run it felt right.

Immediately, the data dwindled to the control icons along the left, a much smaller direction arrow in the upper right corner with a distance estimate and a dashed line in the center of my field of view that angled slightly left of the direction of the arrow. Since Jaime was heading in the direction of the dashed line rather than in exact direction of the arrow, the system must somehow have been plotting the fastest course, although whether this was based on the satellite view I had seen earlier or some other sensor my improved body contained that Jaime hadn't yet explained, I wasn't certain.

I heard a second scream about thirty seconds later when the range had been reduced to a little over a mile. The direction of the arrow jumped slightly although whether this was due to fine-tuning with more data or the target moving wasn't clear.

We had been working our way steadily downhill and now the ground began to flatten out and the spacing between the trees opened up. As the range estimate dropped to two tenths of a mile we reached a large clearing about the size of the one the Cullens used for their version of baseball back home. I could see a road running along the far edge of the clearing, about a quarter mile away and a white SUV parked along the shoulder. For a second, the profile of the vehicle was outlined in green and then text sprang into view next to it stating it was a 2008 Chevy Tahoe and that it had been parked there a minimum of two hours based on thermal emissions from the engine block.

But my attention remained on the vehicle for only the couple of seconds it took to absorb the text. Then it shifted to the three people near a picnic table about five hundred feet closer and a little to the left of a straight line from where we had exited the trees to the parked SUV.

Without even seeming to think about it, my vision jumped into some kind of telescopic mode and the trio looked to be thirty feet away rather than fifteen hundred. In the same way the truck had briefly been outlined in green before data about it appeared in my internal display, two of the three bodies were outlined in green for a fraction of a second. The first, a body stretched out on top of the picnic table, was identified as a male, height five foot ten, weight 175, no visible weapons. The second, crouched on the far side of the table with an expression of terror on her face, was identified as a female, height five foot five, weight 110, no visible weapons.

The third figure, a large man leaning over the man on the table, was never highlighted and the system showed no data for him. It seemed extremely odd until he must have sensed our approach and lifted his head. Then I saw the glittering of his pale skin, the red irises of his eyes, and the blood dripping from his mouth. He was a vampire!

And remembering the cool, almost cold skin possessed by Edward, Alice, and every other Cullen I had ever touched, I realized its thermal image must be outside the range for which my system was calibrated. Well, if they expected me to go up against the Volturi in the future, some adjustments would need to be made.

I tried to shout a warning to Jaime, but she had pulled ahead of me and quickly closed the distance to the vampire. At the last instant, she turned her run into a dive over the picnic table as though she was going to tackle the quarterback in some football game. But just as she reached him, the vampire swept up his right arm in a blindingly fast arc. The blow caught Jaime in the right shoulder and she went flying off to the side. After sailing thirty feet, she crashed to the ground in a ball and rolled at least three times before coming to a stop. She didn't appear to be unconscious, as her arms and legs were still moving, but she was definitely out of the fight for the moment.

My own brisk pace had by now brought me to within thirty feet of the vampire. I quickly skidded to a halt as there was no point in using the same strategy that had failed Jaime.

"Let them go now," I said in my most menacing tone. Although at five foot five and one hundred five pounds, I'm afraid I probably didn't seem too menacing to the vampire, who stood at least six foot four and had to weigh two hundred forty pounds. Emmett was bigger than him, but not by much.

In a flash he was around the table, wrapped his right hand around my throat, and hoisted me into the air.

"What are you?" he asked as he peered into my eyes. "You are too fast for a human. You don't smell like a human. But you are too warm to be a vampire. What are you, little girl?"

I quickly reached up and grabbed his thumb with my newly enhanced hand. Using all my strength I began to pry it free from my windpipe. The heads up display was starting to flash warning messages, but I continued to increase the force I was applying. Abruptly, I heard a sharp snap and I dropped to the ground with his broken off thumb clutched in my hand. It felt like a cold hard piece of granite with a rough jagged edge.

For a moment the vampire just stared at his damaged hand in shock. And as I briefly lay where I had fallen, his attire registered. He wasn't dressed in contemporary clothing like the Cullens, but in a long robe like I had only seen in Italy and then again just a month ago when the Volturi representatives had appeared after the battle against Victoria's army. He drank human blood and was definitely an old school vampire – as in old, experienced vampire. And I had just ripped off his thumb.

Edward had always been reticent about going into vampire lore, but Carlisle had once explained a little about vampiric healing abilities. The vampire's thumb could be reattached and its full function restored if it was done within the next few minutes.

I fully expected the vampire to try to retrieve its thumb, but instead he gave me a vicious kick to the side which sent me sailing into the air. Even before I crashed to the ground, I knew I was badly hurt as I had felt ribs break the instant his heavy boot connected. Then I hit the hard ground and the pain seemed to double.

It felt almost impossible to breath, but I struggled to get back up. If I just lay there, the vampire would surely kill me. And no matter how bad it hurt, I wasn't ready to die. No, my wedding was only three weeks away and no stupid vampire was going to keep me from it.

Jaime was back on her feet and moving slowly towards the vampire. I had just worked my way back to my knees and was contemplating clicking the 'combat mode' icon as the A.I. couldn't do any worse than I had been doing, when abruptly my heads up display flashed a message about an incoming phone call. Bizarrely mundane green 'answer' and red 'hang up' symbols appeared near the center of my field of view.

At the same time I had been thinking about the 'combat mode' feature, I had also been thinking our only hope might be a coordinated attack between Jaime and me. Therefore thinking Jaime might have had the same thought; I quickly focused my gaze on the green button and blinked my eyes.

"It's me. Just stay down."

There was no way I wouldn't recognize that voice. "Alice?"

But the connection had already gone dead.

Then a short, black-attired blur whipped by me headed straight for the large vampire. As she bobbed and weaved around her larger opponent, Alice moved so fast it was almost impossible to focus even my enhanced vision on her. Her adversary quickly responded to this new threat, but seemed unable to land a single blow against her. But then since she probably knew well in advanced his every move, this wasn't really a surprise.

The two moved at a blur for what felt like a long time, but probably wasn't more than ten seconds. Finally, the battle moved back over by the picnic table and Alice used it in a cartwheeling attack which left her slender but powerful legs wrapped around the other's neck. Then her spin continued until I heard a sharp resounding crack. Alice tumbled clear of the suddenly headless body, which slowly tipped and crashed to the ground like some ancient Greek statue toppled by vandals.

Alice effortlessly flowed back to her feet. She took a moment to sweep her short dark brown hair from her eyes before looking in my direction.

With an impish grin she said, "If you are going to play with vampires, you really should let Jasper give you a few pointers first."

Part 3

Alice quickly strode over to me. She gestured with her eyes to follow her and then continued to walk away from the scene of the action until we were at least fifty feet from the picnic table.

"Sorry," she began. "The smell of the blood over there was eating at my self-control."

I remembered her reaction to the incident at her house on my eighteenth birthday and nodded.

After glancing down at the body of the vampire, Jaime had moved over to the picnic table and was reaching towards the vampire's victim who was still sprawled across one end of the table.

"Jaime, he's dead," called Alice in a loud voice. "Don't touch him, we need to talk first."

Jaime pulled back her hand, but continued to stare at the man's body for a moment. I followed her gaze and suddenly my A.I. concurred with Alice's comment by displaying statistics showing the man wasn't breathing and that his body temperature had fallen below ninety-three degrees.

Then Jaime turned to the other girl near the table. The last time I remembered looking at her, she had been cowering in terror. Now, she was sprawled on the ground. My A.I. verified she was still alive.

"I knocked the girl out," called Alice. "It was too late to save her companion and at that point the less she saw of things, the better."

Slowly Jaime stepped away from the table and then headed in our direction.

"Who are you and how do you know my name?" asked Jaime as she strode towards us. There was a faint stutter in her voice and I could see the way she was staring at Alice's face where it continued to glitter in the bright sunlight.

"In a minute, first you need to tell me your cellphone numbers," responded Alice with a small smile.

I immediately understood. Alice had seen this moment in her future and this was how she knew our numbers to warn us away before she had arrived.

"Ah, why?" asked Jaime obviously ignorant of the situation.

"Well, I could hardly have called you and warned you to hang back, if I didn't know your number," answered Alice with a smug expression.

"That was you?" asked Jaime. "But if you already called, then you must know the numbers."

I had clicked the cellphone icon in my visual display and worked down through a couple of levels of menus until I found my number. After rattling off the number, I glanced at Jaime. "Alice can see the future. We need to give her our numbers now so she will be able to use them in the past."

Saying it out loud made it sound crazy even to me, but after a pointed stare from me, Jaime spoke her number, too.

Then I turned my stare in Alice's direction. "And with your special gift, why didn't you foresee the accident that got me into this whole mess?"

For the moment Alice ignored my question. Instead she reached out her hand towards Jaime. "I'm Alice Cullen. It's nice to meet you."

Jaime hesitated for a couple of seconds before responding with a 'Jaime Sommers' as she reached out her own hand. When their hands touched, Jaime paused and looked down. I could see her running her thumb over Alice's inhuman skin and it brought back memories of the first time I touched Edward's hand.

After allowing their touch to linger for a few seconds longer than any normal handshake, Alice took a step back and then lifted the hood of the black sweatshirt she was wearing and covered her head so the sunlight no longer fell directly on her face. "The backup you called will be here soon. You need to drag the vampire's body over here so I can dispose of it before they arrive. We can talk while you work."

Jaime stood there staring at Alice almost as though she was in a trance. I could guess at least part of the reason. It was unlikely she had ever been this close to a vampire before and therefore had never experienced their impossible beauty.

I reached towards Jaime to get her started moving, but as I raised my arm I grimaced in pain.

"Bella, are you okay?" asked Alice with concern written on her face.

If she had seen what was going to happen here, why couldn't she have arrived a few seconds earlier? I thought.

"Yeah, just a couple of broken ribs, I'll survive."

This comment seemed to shake Jaime out of her lethargic state. She started to move with me towards the vampire's body and whispered, "With the anthrocytes in your body, you should be fully healed within an hour."

"Ah, no point in whispering," said Alice in a normal conversational tone even though we were almost thirty feet away from her by now. "My hearing is just as good as yours."

"Then maybe you would like to answer my question now," I shot back.

"Bella, I started getting glimpses of this possible future while we were still back in Forks, which is why I suggested the trip to San Francisco. It wasn't until we were well clear of all the DOGs around Forks and La Push that things became a lot clearer."

I abruptly paused still ten feet short of the vampire's body and turned to look back at Alice.

"You're telling me you saw the accident and decided to let it happen!" I almost shouted.

Alice gave a small shrug. "I'm not trying to play God, but the future I saw solved so many problems."

I started to walk back towards Alice, but Jaime grabbed my arm and pulled me on towards the vampire's body. I resisted only for a moment before following along, but I continued to look back over my shoulder at Alice as my mind raced. How could she let this happen to me? And not just let it happen, but had effectively caused it to happen.

I wanted to scream at her, but just barely held myself under control.

"Why?" I whispered.

"I did it for you. So you could have all the benefits of being one of us without any of the drawbacks. In this future I saw possibilities for you to be forever eighteen without the danger of the bloodlust. For so many of the possible futures where you were turned into a vampire turn out badly.

"I did it for the family. If you aren't turned, the treaty with the Quileutes won't be broken and there needn't be the war I foresaw in so many possible futures.

"I did it for the future of the vampire race. The Volturi and their ways have been stagnate for too long and it is time for their reign to end. The young vampire, Bree, from Victoria's Army had surrendered and Carlisle had promised her sanctuary. The Volturi should have respected our wishes.

"But mostly I did it for Edward. In too many possible futures he destroyed himself before turning you, as he truly believes making you a vampire will cost you your soul."

Alice paused for a moment and then stared straight into my eyes. "Every possible future I foresaw ended badly for some of us or all of us until I saw this one. Yes, this one has its own set of dangers and potential dark outcomes, but now I can see whole new branches of possible futures where things may eventually turn out well, which is a lot better than anything I saw before."

Part 4

I couldn't hold her gaze as I felt my eyes tear up. Quickly, I turned to help Jaime with the body of the large vampire. Oh, either of us could have easily moved it alone due to our enhancements, but I needed the cover the activity provided while I got my emotions back under control.

All of the points Alice had listed for why she had let the accident happen were valid, but the only one that seemed to matter to me was the revelation about Edward. And if I looked deep into my heart, I knew it wasn't really a revelation. No, Edward had been raised nearly a hundred years earlier and he had the morals of a gentleman from that era. No sex before marriage. Attending church nearly every Sunday. His behavior made him the antithesis of every vampire story I had heard growing up. And he had spoken often enough about his fears about my soul to make me realize he truly believed them. He was like the ultimate Victorian romantic at heart and it was easy to imagine him sacrificing his existence, if he thought it would save my soul.

So maybe Alice had been right to stand back and let the accident occur. When I had first learned what had been done to me, I thought I had been turned into some kind of monster with a partially synthetic body. But did this really make me any more monstrous then allowing myself to be turned into a vampire? At least I wasn't lusting for blood like a newly created vampire. Or needed to work to restrain myself the way even experienced Alice had to. And maybe I hadn't been able to take down a vampire on my first try, but I had ripped off its thumb after having this enhanced body for only a couple of hours. With some training and experience, I might be a vampire's equal in a fight.

And suddenly it sounded like fighting vampires was going to be in my future. It had been a shock to learn Bledsoe, the man behind this secret facility, knew about the Volturi and was intent on taking them down. But now suddenly, Alice was professing the same goal. Had she really only first seen this possible future in the last couple of days or had she been working towards it for a long time? How easy would it be for someone who could see the future to give a little nudge here and there to change its path? By letting the accident happen, Alice had already done it. But had she previously nudged Bledsoe onto an intersecting path with the world of vampires? With her ability to see the future, Alice would be the most formidable foe I could imagine. I guess it was a good thing she was on my side.

Realizing my thoughts were getting away from me and that the accident and its consequence couldn't be changed even if I wanted - not that I was certain I wanted the alternative, I forced my mind back to the present.

We had reached the stiff, statue-like body of the large vampire. Jaime was staring down at the stump of a neck that protruded from its shoulders. It truly looked like the broken surface of some long-forgotten statue – all jagged and hard with no disgusting fluids leaking free. I grabbed the nearby head with one hand while wrapping the other about its knees.

"Come on, Jaime, we need to move," I said. My enhanced hearing was already detecting the faint sound of an approaching helicopter. It only took a couple of seconds for my A.I. to identify it as a Bell model 206L.

Jaime must have heard it too, as she quickly grabbed the body by the armpits and we ran over to where Alice waited. I thought she was going to burn the body like we had done with Victoria and her army, but she must have decided there wasn't time. Quickly, the petite-looking girl threw the large body over one shoulder and grabbed its head from me with her other hand.

Then she paused to look at me. "Bella, I have called Edward and your father and told them we were staying an extra day, so don't call them until we get a chance to talk further."

Next she turned to Jaime. "How about we meet at your apartment this evening around 8:30? We can talk while you and your sister pack."

Jaime stared at Alice with an uncomfortable expression on her face. I wasn't certain if it was due to the thought of a vampire in her home, or if it was due to a vampire knowing she had a sister, or some combination of these things.

"Pack?" said Jaime. "Where are we going?"

"Why Forks, silly, I have already seen it," responded Alice with a wink. "We have some things to discuss and I would rather deal with you than your boss. We could hang around here, but we still have wedding preparations to complete. You're welcome to stay with my family, but if a house full of vampires is too scary, I'm sure Bella's father will put you up."

Alice paused to glance up and my A.I. informed me the helicopter had just cleared the trees at the far end of the clearing.

"Well, I've got to run. I am looking forward to seeing you tonight. Bye, Bella."

And then Alice streaked away not apparently hindered in the slightest by the large body that had to outweigh her by almost a factor of three.

The helicopter landed near us and quickly began disgorging men in full combat gear, but Jaime and I just continued to stare at the gap in the trees on the far side of the road where my closest girlfriend had just disappeared.

End of Chapter 2


	3. Chapter 3

7/25/2010

Volturi's Bane

Chapter 3

"I love you."

As always, those were his last words whenever Edward and I ended a call. And once again I had to thank my lucky stars that if I was going to fall for a vampire it had been with 'Edward the Romantic' rather than some Dracula wannabe.

I blinked on the red 'end call' icon near the center of my field of view and then leaned back into the passenger seat of Jaime's car. My gaze took in the increasingly urban streets as we neared her apartment, but my thoughts were focused inwards.

I had just talked to Edward for the first time since the accident, for the first time in thirty-six hours, and I had said nothing, absolutely nothing, about the nearly miraculous things that had transpired in those hours. No, all I had talked about was shopping with Alice. And I wasn't certain why.

Oh, what I had to say would be hard to comprehend face-to-face let alone over the phone. Who would believe that in less than twenty-four hours my arms, my legs, an ear and an eye could be replaced with artificial constructs that were in many ways superior to the originals? And not just replaced, but be fully operational? Or that a large portion of my blood would be replaced with molecular machines which could heal broken ribs in an hour and suspend the aging process? Anyone who heard that without a shred of proof would believe I had gone crazy rather than was simply stating the truth.

Well, maybe Edward would believe me, if I told my story. After my nearly two years in Forks, he certainly would know I am not creative enough to have made up such a bizarre story. But still, it had seemed better to wait until I got home to give him a little demonstration of my new abilities. And truly, I wanted to be there to look into his golden eyes when he realized there was no longer a need for him to turn me into a vampire. I was now as ageless as he without risking my soul, as he feared would happen in the conversion process.

However while part of me knew Alice had been right and this was the best solution from so many angles, the rest of me wasn't certain. Things had been happening so fast ever since I woke in that oversized hospital room at the facility, it felt like I hadn't had a moment to sit back and think. But during the forty-five minute drive from the facility, I had had a little time and the enormity of my situation had started to hit home. I was now part MACHINE. Oh, I wasn't some steam punk monstrosity filled with gears and cams, but a significant part of my body was manmade. And that didn't even address the A.I. supercomputer they had jammed into my head. I think my mental preparations for my anticipated vampiric destiny made it easier for me to accept the sudden gifts of speed and strength than would have been the case for most people. And knowing I would never face millennia of unending blood lust made this situation seem like a gift from heaven. But now with a few minutes of thought, I realized most people would still think of me as some variation of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein monster. And was that really much better than being thought of as some variation of Bram Stoker's Dracula?

It was almost a relief when Jaime chose this moment to interrupt my thoughts, which seemed stuck in some dark, downward spiral.

"Bella, is inviting Alice into my home going to be okay? Until today, I had never met an actual vampire and . . . and it was a lot more intense and the guy was a lot stronger than I was expecting. And a lot faster, too. And my baby sister lives with me. Okay, she's about to be a senior in high school, but she still seems like a young kid to me."

Jaime seemed to be on the verge of babbling, so I jumped in.

"Jaime, it will be alright. Alice is basically a good person. I would trust her with my life and have on several occasions. Okay, you really want to be careful not to cut yourself when she's there or her self-control might slip, but otherwise everything will be fine. Oh, and a vampire needing to be invited in? Just one of the myths, a vampire can go anywhere without an invitation. And they don't sleep in coffins either. Actually, they don't need to sleep at all. Plus you saw how sunlight doesn't hurt them. They only avoid it because the 'sparkle effect' would get them noticed."

"How good can she be if she drinks blood?" asked Jaime, glancing over to me for a second before turning her attention back to the road. "If she kills people like that other one. . ."

"Alice doesn't kill people or drink human blood. None of her family does. They only drink animal blood – preferably large predators like bears or mountain lions."

I almost added a comment about how their drinking human blood would also violate the treaty with the Quileutes. But I realized Jaime, her boss, and the others at the facility might not know about werewolves and I didn't want to reveal that secret if I could avoid it. Jake and his pack didn't need to be hassled by these quasi-governmental types. And besides, the pack was sort of my ace in the hole. They had been a deciding factor in the battle against Victoria's army. And the Volturi didn't seem to know about them. For the moment, the less people who knew about them and their shapeshifting abilities, the better.

Jaime pulled the car over to the curb and then shut off the motor, so we must have reached her apartment. I glanced around and we were on a tree-lined street filled with larger, older homes. Obviously, Jaime and her sister didn't live in a traditional apartment complex, but in a house that had been converted into three or four apartments.

I had just started reaching for the door handle when Jaime touched my arm.

"Our abilities need to be a secret. Even my sister doesn't know; so be careful what you say in front of her. And I would really prefer if she didn't find out about vampires either."

I slowly nodded. "I'll be careful about what I say in front of your sister. But obviously Alice knows our secret. And if Alice knows, Edward will know as soon as she gets back to Forks. In the same way Alice can see the future; Edward can hear the thoughts of almost anyone in his presence. And their 'family' is very close and has been together for over eighty years. If two of them know, the rest will know soon after."

"Damn," responded Jaime with a shake of her head. "Jonas is not going to be happy. I think less than thirty people in the world know of my abilities."

"Well, if he truly expects to be successful against the Volturi, he's going to need a lot of help. Carlisle, Alice's adoptive father, has been dealing with the Volturi for hundreds of years. And the rest of the Cullens bring a lot of unique abilities to the table. Before today I would have strongly doubted they would want to disrupt the status quo, but Alice's comments are getting me to think otherwise. And even if it is only Alice who wants to see them overthrown, she can be very persuasive to the others with her gift for seeing the future consequences of various courses of action."

Jaime looked at me for a moment as though she wanted to gauge my reaction. "Tell me the truth. You've met at least some of the Volturi. Do you think we stand a chance of defeating them?"

I don't know what she could tell from my expression, but I tried to answer as truthfully as I could. "I don't know. With Alice's ability to see the future to help us make the best choices along the way, maybe, but the Volturi have access to weird psychic abilities, too.

"The only good thing is that their numbers are limited. They have always worked hard to limit the vampire population to minimize the risk of being exposed. I think the whole world's vampire population numbers only in the low hundreds. Well, at least when none of them are forming vampire armies."

"Vampire armies?" echoed Jaime.

I smiled. "There is a lot you need to learn about vampires. Hell, there's a lot I need to learn about them, too, if we have any hope to be successful." I paused to open my car door. "But it's probably better to get it straight from the source. Alice or Carlisle or Jasper, Alice's husband, will be better sources of information than me."

Jaime nodded, opened her door and climbed out.

We quickly walked up to the antique front door. It was filled with large panes of etched glass which allowed a view into the house's interior although all that was visible was a hallway and a staircase leading to the second floor. Jaime unlocked the door and ushered me through before leading the way up the staircase.

She used a second key on the ring to open the apartment's front door. This door looked much more solidly built and when she closed it behind us, it gave a satisfying 'thunk'. I must have raised an eyebrow, as Jaime responded.

"A couple of times, my work has tried to follow me home. I take security a lot more seriously now than I did back in the days when I was a part-time student, part-time bartender."

I nodded and then turned to take in the apartment. The living room, dining room, and kitchen were all one big open area at the front of the building and had a pleasant airy feel. I could see a short hallway leading towards the back where I assumed the bedrooms were located.

"Let me see if Becca is home," said Jaime before she disappeared down the hallway. I know at my house my Dad or I would merely shout to see if the other was around, but perhaps Jaime and her sister had a more formal relationship.

In less than thirty seconds Jaime returned. "She's not here. I sent a text and she answered saying she is on her way home from the library and should be here in a few minutes."

Then Jaime gestured towards the large off-white overstuffed sofa before continuing. "Have a seat. Would you like anything to drink? I think we have some sodas, ice tea, or I could make some coffee."

"Ice tea sounds nice," I answered before wandering over to the couch.

As I took a seat, I glanced at the nearby large bookcase. My augmented reality software quickly and briefly outlined each binding in green. Then as I slowly swept my eyes along a shelf, whichever book was in the center of my vision would highlight with a display of its front cover and a brief synopsis. Curious, I focused on the cover of a book about 'green' gardening and after a couple of seconds it expanded to fill most of my field of view. Then a table of contents appeared to its left and when I blinked on a chapter, the virtual book appeared to quickly flip pages until it reached the first page of that chapter.

After playing around with that book for a few seconds, I closed it and randomly selected another volume; this one was what I guessed to be a college level text book on robotics. The virtual version of this one which appeared in my visual array also would immediately opened to any selected page. I had to wonder if every book ever written was stored in my head or if the A.I. was seamlessly retrieving them from the web, as needed.

"Playing with the augmented reality function?" asked Jaime as she handed me a tall glass.

"Yeah," I answered. "Quite an eclectic collection of books you have."

Jaime glanced at the bookcase for a moment. "Well, that's what happens when you have two people with very different tastes sharing an apartment. Even with my, ah, specialized gifts, you might be surprised to learn all the history, travel, art, and cooking books are mine while all the science books belong to my sister."

Jaime paused to shake her head. "Becca is very attractive, maybe borderline beautiful, but talk to her for more than five minutes and you'll realize she's a true geek."

I was about to respond that my tastes ran more to the liberal arts end of the spectrum, too, when we were interrupted by the doorbell. I glanced at the time displayed in the upper left corner of my visual display and saw it was eight twenty-five. It had to be Alice. Jaime quickly moved over to a fancy panel by the door I hadn't noticed. Not only was there an intercom to the building's door, but also a video display for a security camera. I wondered if this was another upgrade related to Jaime's work.

Would I soon be needing security like this around my home in Forks? Of course, what good would it have done against Victoria or any of her followers? No, if my new life was going to require additional security, I would once again have to depend on the Cullens and Jake's friends.

It seemed like only a moment before Jaime was opening the apartment's door and I noticed how she stood well back to give Alice a wide berth.

Alice flitted into the room and then almost seemed to dance over to where I had risen from my seat.

"Bella, how are you doing? Any more adventures to share since your run-in with Santiago earlier?"

"Alice, you knew the other vampire? Was he one of the Volturi?"

Alice nodded, but continued to display a big smile. "Yeah, he has been one of their lower ranking guards for hundreds of years. But he never had any special gift beyond brute strength to earn him a higher station."

"So he was stronger than average?" asked Jaime with a hint of relief in her voice. She had finally approached until she was standing near Alice and she appeared to tower over the petite vampire. Not that Jaime was particularly tall – five seven, maybe five eight. No, it just emphasized how diminutive Alice was at five one.

Alice shrugged. "I guess. However from my experience speed and skill will usually triumph over brute force."

I was less interested in his strength than why he was here. "Is he here because of me? Are the Volturi coming now because I haven't yet been turned? Or do they know about my change?"

Alice frowned and got this expression on her face I had come to associate with her using her special gift. She stared blankly into the distance for fifteen seconds.

"Santiago came over from Italy with the group who were here to deal with Victoria's army. He chose to remain when most of the others went home. His death has not significantly impacted future probabilities. The Volturi are still intending to enforce their edict that you be converted. Their representatives will arrive in Forks on August 13th unless they have positive proof it has already happened."

"August 13th? But that's the day before my wedding! We were supposed to have more time," I said sharply. I had planned to enjoy my honeymoon as a human before making the big change and then, depending how the change went, do a second honeymoon as a vampire for the complete experience. And now they were going to insist the change happen, one way or the other, before we even had a chance to get married.

"More importantly, it sets the upper time limit on when we are going to have to move against the Volturi. Because as soon as one of them gets close enough to you to smell your change and lives to tell about it, they are going to move against us," responded Alice.

For a moment I fantasized about Edward and me simply running away and spending the next few years in some secret hideaway. But I knew it could be nothing but a fantasy. James had had no difficulty tracking me to Phoenix and I knew from Edward that the Volturi had trackers who would make James look like a rank amateur.

"That's barely three weeks away," said Jaime quietly. "I don't think my boss and our organization were planning to make the first serious move against them for at least a year."

Alice threw Jaime a girlish grin like it was all some big game. "I guess he is just going to have to try to keep up. Fortunately, I do have a few things in motion."

I wondered what Alice already had in the works. How long had she known about this possible path forward? If it had been longer than since we had left Forks, then Edward would have certainly read it in her thoughts. If he knew about things, why hadn't he mentioned them to me? Had Alice and Edward and maybe the others been keeping secrets from me? And if Alice hadn't clearly seen a future where I would have the accident and end up with these enhancements until after we left Forks, why would she already have had things in motion?

These thoughts were swirling around in my head and as I tried to turn them into a coherent set of questions, my enhanced hearing heard a key slide into the apartment door's lock. It had to be Jaime's sister. And if I was going to honor my pledge not to reveal our secret enhancements or reveal the existence of vampires, we were going to have to table the whole conversation for now.

"Jaime, I'm home," called a girl's youthful voice as the door barely began to swing open. Of course, then I had to remind myself, if Jaime's sister was about to be a senior in high school, she was only a year younger than me. However after the last twenty-four hours, I was feeling a lot older than eighteen going on nineteen. A nineteen that was now, good or bad, never going to arrive. Good, because my new enhancements meant I would never age. Bad, because the Volturi were due to arrive before my nineteenth birthday and I suspect they would try to kill me because of my new enhancements. Yeah, no matter how I looked at it, I was never going to turn nineteen.

Jaime moved over towards the door. Based on her earlier comments about being leery at having a vampire in close proximity of her sister, it seemed like her intention was to be protective. However Alice had also turned towards the door and Jaime's sister, who looked like a younger, shorter version of Jaime, looked straight passed Jaime at Alice. And after a quick look of surprise, a grin broke out across the younger girl's face.

"Alice? What are you doing here? This is such a wonderful surprise."

Jaime had a startled expression on her face as she looked down at her shorter sibling. "Becca, you know her?"

Jaime's sister didn't respond to her question. She started to move passed her in Alice's direction, until Jaime clasped her arm. When she had her sister's attention, Jaime abruptly began to sign. It wasn't until then that I realized Jaime's sister was deaf.

"Yes, I know her," said Becca when Jaime finished signing. "Although it has been a couple of years since I have seen her. We met at that evening robotics course I took down at Stanford during the fall of my sophomore year. We have stayed in touch by email and she helps me sometimes when I get stuck on my project. Surely you remember me talking about my friend, 'Golden Eyes'?"

The girl's speaking abilities were as good as mine. Whatever had caused her hearing loss, she hadn't had the problem since birth.

Then I ran the numbers in my head. The fall of her sophomore year in high school would correspond to the period when the Cullens had left Forks. They had never said where they had gone, other than I knew Edward spent much of that time alone in South America. It was only mildly surprising to learn Alice had spent the time in foggy San Francisco. However I never would have guessed she would have spent it taking science classes at Stanford.

Jaime turned back towards Alice and asked in an almost demanding tone. "You're Golden Eyes?"

Alice grinned. "Guilty, as charged." And it was an exceedingly appropriate moniker, as no ordinary human had eyes the shade of pure gold she possessed.

"And you've known her for years?"

Alice nodded. "However I'll admit I never realized your connection to her until we met face-to-face this afternoon."

I had remained on the sofa, but now rose to my feet and walked over to where the others stood closer to the still open door.

At my approach, Jaime touched her sister's arm. When the younger girl looked at Jaime's face, Jaime said, "Becca, this is Bella, a friend of Alice's."

Becca started to turn in my direction, but before her head had completed the motion, Alice began to sign. I was surprised at first she knew sign language, but with over a hundred years of life, Alice had had plenty of time to learn a lot of obscure things. And learning she knew sign language was much less of a shock than finding out she had been attending robotics classes at Stanford.

Then I got a bigger shock when my Augmented Reality system started printing across my field of view what Alice was saying in sign language. What were the limits of my A.I. system?

". . . a lot more than just a friend. Bella is marrying my brother in three weeks."

"Congratulations," said Becca extending her hand in my direction. "I would love to meet your fiancé and the rest of Alice's family someday. And yours, too."

As I shook the offered hand, Alice moved beside me so Becca could see both of our faces.

"I think that someday is going to be today. I would very much like for you and Jaime to come up to Washington State with us for a couple of weeks."

Becca grinned at Alice and then turned to her sister. "Can we? School doesn't start for over a month. But can you get away from work?"

Jaime smiled, but it looked a little forced to me. "Yeah, I'm due some vacation and the few things I need to take care of can be handled by email."

Becca was displaying a wide grin as she turned back towards Alice and me. Then abruptly she frowned. "Damn, I almost forgot about my project. It's due in just over a month. There's no way I'll be done in time, if I take a couple of weeks off now."

Now it was Alice's turn to grin. "No problem. I have a large van out front. We can pack up your gear and take it with us. And I'm sure I can squeeze in a little time amongst all the wedding preparations to help you."

"Wow, that'd be great," answered Becca. "Most of my equipment is down in the garage, as Jaime wouldn't let me keep it up here after the second hydraulic leak ruined the carpet in my room. Want to help me start packing?"

"Sure, Becca. Although why don't you get started. I'll be down in a couple of minutes and move the van around."

Becca nodded. Then turning to her sister, she exclaimed. "This is going to be so much fun."

Jaime smiled, but again it struck me as forced. I wasn't sure if it was the thought of her little sister spending time with a family of vampires or concerns about the accelerated schedule for dealing with the Volturi which was suddenly necessary – probably it was some combination of the two.

Becca dropped her backpack on the kitchen counter and then went back out the front door with a definite bounce to her step. It was nice to see at least someone was having a good day.

"You've been taking robotics classes?" I whispered to Alice as I watched Becca descend the stairs. I knew Becca couldn't hear me if she couldn't see my lips, but whispering somehow still felt appropriate.

"Well, you know," began Alice speaking at a normal tone. "After the twenty-fifth time you have graduated from high school, it gets kind of old. And when you have an extra eight hours every day, which others spend sleeping, it's easy to become bored with life. So you learn to explore different things. Perhaps it is learning different musical instruments like Edward. For me, for the last couple of decades anyway, it has been learning about science."

Alice had never struck me as the nerdy type. Or the scholarly type.

"Science?" I echoed back. "You struck me as someone who wouldn't open a textbook unless someone held a gun to your head."

She grinned. "Who said anything about me opening textbooks? I have just been using the patented 'Alice's Bootstrap Method for the Advancement of Science' to see that certain technologies move in the right directions."

Alice must have seen the lost expression on my face, so she explained. "Remember how I saw your cellphone numbers in the future so I could call you in the past? Well, it's the same thing. I see solutions to problems in the future and then give the scientists a hint in the past to point them in the right direction. I have been helping Becca and a few others I have met here and there who are developing things my visions indicate are important."

All of a sudden the 'lift yourself by your bootstraps' reference made sense. We had talked about 'perpetual motion' devices briefly in physics class and how they were impossible. But wasn't what Alice had just described been much the same thing? If she was getting information from the future and using it in the past, it had to be violating some laws of physics. And whether it was getting information about how her opponent would move in a fight or secrets about some scientific advance, it was the same. I had just never thought about it in this light before.

However at that moment my musings were interrupted by Jaime.

"If we are going to do this, we better get busy. Becca has an awful lot of equipment down in the garage."

Alice nodded. "Why don't you two go down and help her while I go get the van." Then she flitted back out through the front door and was gone.

Jaime gestured towards the still open door. "This day certainly hasn't gone the way I expected when I left for work this morning."

"Tell me about it," I retorted. "I wake up with most of my body replaced and discover I am about to go to war with the Volturi."

Jaime glanced up at me as we descended the stairs. "At least you had heard of vampires before today. Jonas likes to play things close to the vest. He may have been plotting against the Volturi for months or years, but he didn't brief me until an hour before I met you. 'Need to know' and all that crap."

We exited through the back door of the house. Behind it stood a wide garage structure with four individual stalls, which I assumed were each assigned to one of the apartments. Jaime must park full time in the street, as I could just barely see Becca moving about in the stall behind the one open door. And has Jaime had said, Becca had a lot of equipment.

As we moved closer, I could see racks of electronic equipment, some welding gear that would make Jacob green with envy, and even an anvil that looked straight from some blacksmith's shop. How had a high school girl accumulated so much stuff? And how were four girls going to be able to load it into a van?

Then with a grin, I abruptly remembered three of the four had superhuman strength.

End of Chapter 3


	4. Chapter 4

6/19/11

**Volturi's Bane**

**Chapter 4**

Part 1

"Wake up, Bella, we're here," Alice said in a cheerful tone while giving me a playful jab in the ribs.

I let out a small groan as I lifted my head from where it had been resting against her shoulder. I rubbed at my eyes as I sat upright. For just a moment I wondered where I was, but then it all came rushing back. We were in the large moving van Alice had rented down in San Francisco. Glancing outside I realized we must have just arrived back in Forks, as we were less than a block from reaching my house. I was about to ask what time it was, as this was another typical overcast, slightly drizzly day which made it impossible to estimate the time by looking at the sky, but then all the other life altering things surged to the front of my mind when I noticed the digital display in the corner of my field of view stating the current time was 11:56 AM.

We had made excellent time since it had been after 10 PM when we had pulled away from Jaime and Becca's apartment back in San Francisco. With a quick glance at the van's large side view mirror, I could see Jaime's white Camaro was still behind us. I barely had to think about it and my enhanced vision zoomed in and I could see Becca was behind the wheel and Jaime was half curled up in the front passenger seat.

Alice had driven the van the entire way, while the other three of us had switched off turns driving Jaime's car or sleeping. My newly enhanced body might have many similar advantages to those of the vampires, but unlike them, I still needed sleep. Well, according to what Jaime told me during one of the times we were in the same car together, we could go a lot longer without sleep in an emergency than a normal human due to the anthrocytes in our blood, but there was no point in pushing it under normal circumstances.

And, I'm sure, my mind was still trying to adjust to all the changes it had experienced in the last twenty-four hours, as it was barely more than that long since I had awoken in the Wolf Creek Biomedical Research Institute to discover my arms and legs, an eye and an ear had been replaced by artificial constructs after I had been hit and nearly killed by a car. Yes, my mind definitely needed some off-line time to adjust and I was almost surprised I hadn't experienced any nightmares. But then who knows, perhaps the A.I. in my head was tweaking my alpha waves to prevent them.

It seemed like I almost needed a user's manual to understand my body now. Of course, no one had offered me a foot thick manual before I had been sent on my way. But with all the other new data banging around in my head, a user's manual was probably buried in there somewhere, too, if I were to look hard enough. Maybe I should see if it had a 'tip of the day' feature like some software packages did, so I could learn something new every time I woke up.

At least I did now wake up a lot faster than the old me. I was basically worthless in the old days until I had a shower and a cup of coffee, but now by the time I was sitting up straight, I felt fully awake and ready to cope with anything.

Or at least so I thought until I glanced forward towards my house and saw Jacob standing on the lawn next to his motorcycle. Oh, it wasn't a surprise as I had called and asked him to meet us there, but I could feel in my heart that I wished it had been Edward instead. But in the same way I had told Jacob to meet us; I had called Edward and asked him to meet me out in 'our' glade at two-thirty. It seemed like it would be best to first talk to Edward in private rather than springing my change on him in front of a group of others. Hopefully, Edward would be happy with the new situation, but I still got a twinge in my stomach when I thought about it. What if he couldn't handle that half my body had been replaced by some futuristic machines? The vampire, Santiago, had said I didn't smell human. What if Edward couldn't stand how I now smelled? Alice hadn't said anything about it, but what if it turned Edward off?

I almost shook my head to dispel these useless thoughts. It was too late to change things now and go back to the way I was. Then as my attention focused back on Jake, I wondered if he would be able to smell the difference in me, too. I hadn't planned to tell him about my new situation, or at least not immediately, but this might also be beyond my control.

Alice pulled the big van over, parking in front of my house. After shutting off the engine, she rested her cool hand on mine for a moment.

"Bella, everything isn't crystal clear with the dog, sorry, with Jacob standing so near, but I think things will go okay at least for today. So don't let your thoughts twist you into knots."

I turned and looked at her. It was almost as though she could read my mind the same way Edward could hear almost everyone else's thoughts. But then I reminded myself it could probably just be attributed to a hundred years' worth of experience reading people's body language.

"I'll try not to," I responded while smiling a smile that only felt slightly forced. "Come on, let's go make the introductions."

I opened the door and climbed down from the tall vehicle. My feet had barely touched the ground when Jacob came striding up. For a second I thought he was going to sweep me up in a hug, but he halted with three feet still separating us. However that was close enough that I could feel the heat radiating from his body. And he almost seemed to glow in my vision like some kind of angel, but I'm sure it was just the thermal overlay of the infrared receptors in my enhanced vision.

I had hoped to keep Jacob and his pack's special nature a secret from Jaime and her people, but if he glowed in her vision like he did in mine, she would know there was something special about him as soon as she stepped from her car.

But I couldn't do anything about that now and therefore I turn my attention towards Jake's face. He, in turn was staring at me with his head tilted to one side. It certainly looked like he sensed something different about me. Or perhaps it was just a reaction to my unexpected call. Jake had seemed to be pulling away from me the closer we got to the wedding. And I guess I couldn't blame him.

"Hi, Jake, thanks for coming."

"I was a little surprised you called asking for a favor," Jake responded, unable to completely hide the hurt and anger he still felt over my choosing Edward over him.

Before I could reply, Alice came walking up from around the front of the van while Jaime and Becca came walking up from behind the van. I could see Jake tense as Alice got close.

"Jake, these are my friends Jaime and Becca Sommers. They are visiting from San Francisco and will be staying with me for a couple of weeks." Then turning so Becca could see my face and mouth, I continued. "Guys, this is my good friend, Jacob Black."

Jaime and Becca both responded with timid 'hellos'. And I could understand their hesitation. It's not every day you meet a towering seven foot tall guy wearing just shorts and a formfitting tee shirt. And the light drizzle had plastered the tee to his dark skin, turning it almost transparent - highlighting his big, ripped physique.

"Alice, would you mind showing Jaime and Becca to the guest room? I need to talk to Jake for a minute and then I'll be right in."

Alice nodded. Raising her left hand, she gestured towards the front door. "Ladies, if you would like to follow me."

I watched their retreating forms and couldn't help but notice the glance Becca threw back over her shoulder before she turned to her older sister and began gesturing in what had to be sign language. Her back was mostly towards me so my A.I. couldn't see her well enough to offer a translation, but I hoped I could guess what she was saying. Because Jaime and I needed to spend some time this evening discussing the Volturi situation with the Cullens and I needed some place safe and out of the way for Becca to stay where she wouldn't become aware of any of our secrets, hence the favor from Jake.

"Jake, about the favor. . ." I began before he abruptly cut me off.

"Why should I do you a favor?" he said sullenly.

I sighed. Nothing was ever simple. "Because a lot of things have changed since I last saw you."

I had been watching his eyes and he couldn't keep a sudden glimmer of hope from shining through.

I hated to dash his hopes, but I shook my head. "No, the wedding isn't off." However perhaps I needed to let him in a little ways. "But my turning is on hold for the present."

Jake couldn't suppress a grin. As long as I was human, I'm sure he thought he still had a chance of ending up with me.

"So what's the favor you need?" Jake asked, suddenly sounding all magnanimous.

"Jaime and I are meeting with the Cullens this evening. Becca doesn't know about vampires and we would like to keep it that way, if possible. I was hoping you could entertain her for the evening."

"So, does that mean Jaime knows about vampires?" asked Jake rather than giving me a yes or no answer to my question.

"Yeah," I responded. I had been about to add she didn't know about the wolves when I realized I could clearly hear and understand the conversation Alice and Jaime were holding in the second floor bedroom through a closed window. If I could hear them, Jaime could doubtlessly hear and understand our conversation, too. So instead I continued with what I hoped would be a more cryptic phrasing and at a near whisper. "But she doesn't know about your guys."

Jake nodded that he got my meaning. "Okay, so any suggestions how I am supposed to entertain this Becca?"

I almost laughed at his expression. "Jake, just because she is so much shorter than you, she's not like twelve. Everyone is that much shorter than you now. Becca is going to be a senior in high school this fall just like you.

"And truthfully, I meant more than just watching her for the evening. She is working on some project for school I barely understand, but I was hoping she could set up her equipment and work down at your place while they are here."

Jake sighed. "What kind of equipment are we talking about?"

I grinned. "I've only known her since last night and we have only chatted a little. But if I was going to describe her using only two words, those words would be _Mad Scientist_."

"Mad Scientist?" echoed Jake with a suddenly intrigued glance towards the front of the house.

"Yeah, she's working on a machine for some robotics contest sponsored by Cal Tech. I always thought those contests involved little robots that ran around on a tabletop or those small fighting robots you see on the show on the Discovery Channel that Charlie likes. But what she has been describing to me is much bigger and very, very fast. It sounds more like a weapon for the military than something for a college sponsored contest."

Of course, after having half my body replaced with some nanomachine-based construct, her project didn't impress me nearly as much as it might have before. But then I had to remember she had effectively been doing this on her own and on an extremely limited budget. She seemed so bright, I had to wonder what she could achieve with access to something like the technical and financial resources of the people who had given me my new body. Could she design and build an autonomous android which could pass for human?

Turning my attention back to Jake, I continued. "Anyway, I remember how you seemed to enjoy rebuilding those old bikes and I thought you might like to help her. She has a lot of cool shop equipment. In fact, that's why we have the big van. It's filled almost to the brim with her gear."

Jake turned his gaze back towards the house for a moment. "Okay. With a little work, the guys and I should be able to clear enough workspace in the old shed in our backyard."

Then he turned back to me and looked hard into my eyes. "Bella, what's really going on? Who's this Jaime and how does she know about vampires?"

Alice and I had spent a little time during the drive working on a plan for taking down the Volturi given the compressed time schedule based on their arrival the day before my wedding. Well, working on the plan had consisted mainly of us throwing out ideas and then letting Alice use her special gift to see if any of them had any potential of working. And surprisingly, the ones that seemed to give the highest probability of success all involved taking the fight to them rather than waiting for them to come to us.

"Jake, would you and your guys be willing to make a little trip to Italy in about ten days? It would be extremely dangerous, but with luck, it would reduce the world's vampire population by a significant number. And we're talking the worst ones, the ones who kill people for sport as much as for blood."

I hated to play on Jake and the other wolves all-consuming urge for battle, but the odds of beating the Volturi had to be a lot higher with them on our side rather than sitting back here on the sidelines.

A wave of disappointment passed through me when Jake shook his head.

"We were given our gift to protect the tribe, not to go gallivanting halfway across the world."

I hated to play my really big card with Jake, particularly since I was now with Edward, but my survival and that of Edward and the rest of the Cullens might depend on it.

"The Volturi, the big bad ruling clan from Italy, are coming on August 14th to verify that I have been transformed into a vampire. And if I haven't been turned by then, they are going to forcibly do it. I don't want to do it now, but it is either let them do it or they will kill me. If we do nothing, I am going to be either a vampire or dead in less than three weeks. That's why we have to strike first. But if we attack and fail, I will end up dead, too."

And as I said those words, for the first time they really began to sink in. I had this new improved body, but it was no guarantee I was going to survive the coming battle with the Volturi whether we took the fight to them or waited for them here. I had to face the real possibility I would be dead, or worse, within the next three weeks. But I realized I didn't have time to allow myself to go all maudlin, if I started to wallow in my worries it would almost ensure I would lose.

"Stay out at the reservation until this all blows over," Jake responded. "We'll protect you like before." He hesitated for a moment before adding. "And I'll talk to the others about letting the Cullens join us. Together we can defeat these vampires like we did the last bunch."

Now I found myself shaking my head. "These aren't like the last bunch. Except for Victoria, those were all new vampires who weren't fully experienced with their abilities. This time we are talking a dozen or more vampires with centuries of experience. If we lose here, they might wipe out the entire Quileute tribe in retribution for your getting involved. No, if the fight happens here, it would be best if you and your guys don't get involved."

I decided I had pushed as hard as I could for the moment and it was probably best to let Jake think about it for a while. And with their telepathic bond, the other members of his pack would all know about the situation now, too. They would need some time to think about it and discuss it among themselves.

"Just think about it, Jake. You don't have to commit to anything right this minute."

Jake slowly nodded and that was the best I could hope for at the moment.

"You never did explain about Jaime's involvement," he finally said.

I needed to say something and I suddenly realized how little I knew about her organization beyond their obvious expertise in rebuilding damaged human bodies and their desire to remove the Volturi from their position of power.

Knowing Jaime could overhear this conversation, if she chose, I tried to pick my words carefully. "Jaime works for some hush-hush quasi-governmental organization, who are also interested in bringing down the Volturi. Based on the trip I made over to Italy, they felt I had a connection to the Volturi and they are quietly trying to recruit me to help with their plans. They bring financial and technical support to the table, but their plans may not be moving forward fast enough to solve my personal problem with the Volturi. Jaime is mainly here to talk to the Cullens to gather intel on the Volturi. At this point, I am hoping that working with them might have some benefits for my situation."

Jake again glanced towards the house with a speculative expression on his face. "Would her organization be footing the bill for the trip to Italy?"

Suddenly, the crux of what was holding Jake back became clear. He thought the Cullens would be footing the bill and his pride wouldn't let him accept their help.

"It's possible," I replied thinking furiously. "But we might have to let them in on why you need to go with us."

Jake started to shrug, but then he suddenly broke into a grin. "This time it is the Indians who are the good guys and who are wearing the white hats. It's the vampires who need to hide in the shadows, not us."

My original thoughts had been to keep Jake and his pack's abilities a secret I could hold in reserve until they were really needed. But perhaps it was better to get everything out in the open. Hopefully, it would result in the most effective strategy.

And it wasn't like Jaime probably didn't already suspect something from what she would see by simply looking at Jake with her special enhanced vision or from what she had heard if she had been listening in on this conversation.

"Okay, let me talk with Jaime and have her pass it up her chain of command. At least we will know if it is an option when it becomes time to start making the big decisions."

Jake nodded, but at the moment he had the faraway look in his eyes that he got when he was communicating with his pack.

When his gaze cleared after a couple minutes, I gestured towards the house. "I don't see Charlie's car, so I'm guessing he's at work. We might as well grab Jaime and Becca and head out to your place so we can start to unpack Becca's gear."

Part 2

'I would like to ride with Jake,' signed Becca while looking straight at her sister.

Since Becca was still only seventeen, Jaime was technically her legal guardian. But Becca's expression didn't indicate she was asking permission. To me, it looked more like she was merely doing her sister the courtesy of informing her of a fact.

'Helmet?' signed Jaime in turn, as though to ask her question in private to avoid potentially embarrassing the younger girl.

Becca just gave Jaime a look that said she wasn't so stupid as to not wear head protection.

Then Becca turned to face Jacob. "Your bike looks like fun. I would love to ride to your place with you. Do you have a helmet I could use?"

Jake shot me a quick glance before nodding and heading to his bike where a helmet was hanging from a strap on the opposite side.

I looked between Jaime and Becca for a moment. Jaime was part big sister and part Mother figure to Becca. I never had a sister and I haven't lived with my Mom in several years, but I still remembered our relationship and it seldom seemed as smooth as the one these two girls appeared to share. I wondered how much of it could be credited to the sign language. Having a private mode of communication few others would understand must allow things to be said between them which couldn't normally be said comfortably in front of others.

"It looks like it is the van for us," I said to Jaime, as Becca moved over to where Jake held out the helmet.

Jaime nodded, but continued to stand there watching until Becca had the helmet securely in place. She definitely had some motherly behaviors around her little sister.

Once Jake had the bike fired up and Becca had climbed on behind him and wrapped her arms tightly around his muscular waist, Jaime turned and moved towards the van's passenger door.

"I don't think you have to worry about anything happening between the two of them during the ride to La Push. Becca isn't going to be able to read a word he says while sitting behind him," I said quietly.

Jaime shot me a glance, as she climbed into van. Once we were both inside, she asked, "Do you think something is going to happen between the two of them?"

I shrugged. I'm not usually one to put my opinions and feelings out there, particularly with someone who was almost a complete stranger. But if we were going to survive the coming weeks and the almost certain battle with the Volturi, we were going to have to learn to trust each other. And this seemed like as good a place to start as any.

"I don't know. But truthfully, I wouldn't mind if an attraction blossomed a little. Jake's a good guy, but he has been . . . well . . . fixated on me for too long. At one time, I thought something could maybe develop between the two of us. But I am now absolutely certain my heart and soul belong to Edward. So it would be nice if Jake could move on. And your sister seems nice and she seems, I don't know, sort of tough and strong. I don't think the physical side of Jake will intimidate her like it can for a lot of people."

"Yeah," replied Jaime. "Becca has had to learn to be tough during the last eight years between the death of our Mother, the loss of her hearing, and then the way our Dad just walked out on us."

When she put it like that, the fact my parents were divorced and my Mom now lived on the other side of the country suddenly seemed like pretty small potatoes.

"So what's Jake's story?" asked Jaime maintaining a serious tone. "When Becca got sick and her temperature hovered right at 105° for almost 24 hours before the doctors could get it down, it cost her her hearing. Now here's Jake with a constant temperature of 108.6° and it doesn't seem to be having a negative impact on him."

This line of questioning had seemed inevitable, given some of Jaime's abilities, but I had hoped we would at least clear my street before it came up. I fired up the van, put it in gear, and pulled away from the curb before responding. And since Jake had given his approval, I jumped straight in.

"Jake and some of his friends have special, I guess you could say supernatural, abilities. They can transform at will into these giant wolves, which are bigger, faster, and stronger than any natural wolf. In their wolf form, they are one of the few creatures able to fight a vampire with a chance of winning. The Quileute tribe has had members who can transform into wolves to protect the tribe against vampires for as far back as there have been vampires in this area. They have a long intricate legend describing the origin of the first wolf pack that I'm sure Jake or his father will be happy to share with you, if you are interested."

"Are we talking about werewolves?" asked Jaime with a catch in her voice.

I glanced over and took in her expression. I think she was having serious second thoughts about having brought her baby sister up here. Now, rather than letting Becca accompany us to Alice's house which was filled with vampires, she had instead unwittingly agreed to let her sister stay with werewolves.

"We are not talking about werewolves, or at least not like something out of the old stories and movies," I began in an attempt to sooth Jaime's nerves. "Jake and his pack can transform into their wolf forms at will, it has nothing to do with full moons or the dark of night. And they don't become mindless monsters; they retain all their normal mental faculties while gaining the wolf's physical attributes. And the members of the pack can communicate telepathically, while to the best of my recollection all the werewolves of myth were solitary creatures. So other than the similar outward appearance, Jake and his friends have little in common with werewolves."

Jaime sat there in silence for several minutes. We were outside of town and on the highway to La Push before she finally spoke.

"So if the werewolves, sorry, wolves are here to protect the tribe from vampires that would seem to make them enemies. But Alice and Jacob didn't attack each other on sight."

"Carlisle, Alice's adoptive father, negotiated a truce with the Quileutes a long time ago like more than eighty years ago. You've seen how the vampires have no problem moving about in daylight. Direct sunlight doesn't hurt them, but you saw yesterday how they glitter and don't look at all normal when exposed to the sun. So, it is easiest and the lowest risk for them if they spend their time in places with little sunlight. And Forks just happens to have less sunny days than anywhere else in the continental United States. So this is the ideal place for a family of vampires to live.

"Anyway, as you guessed, the wolves and the vampires are natural enemies. Alice, Edward, and the others can barely stand to be in the same room with Jake and vice versa. It still seems almost amazing Carlisle managed to negotiate that first treaty, but somehow he did. And the terms are pretty simple. Carlisle and his family aren't permitted on the reservation. They agreed to never kill anyone or drink human blood. And in return, the Quileutes will leave the Cullens alone.

"And this uneasy truce has held remarkably well for all these decades; or at least until I showed up two years ago. Suddenly, it was like I found myself in some Shakespearean play where the sons of two powerful warring kingdoms were both drawn to the same princess and I was caught in the middle."

I stumbled to a halt and tried to concentrate on driving. The words had simply flowed out and I couldn't believe I had referred to myself as a princess like out of some fairy tale. I mean I'm not beautiful like Alice or Rosalie or Esme or even, frankly, like Jaime. I'm just an average girl, or at least I was until I had a big portion of my body replaced with synthetic constructs. Now I was much closer to some kind of freak than I would ever be to a princess.

But for the moment Jaime let the whole princess comment slide.

"So, is the treaty the reason Alice begged off coming with us?"

I nodded. "Yeah, Alice was just trying to be circumspect about the reason since you didn't know about wolves or the treaty."

After Alice had made excuses about having other things she needed to do, she had briefly pulled me aside and told me she would avoid Edward until I had a chance to talk to him, so he wouldn't learn of my transformation through reading her thoughts. Part of me had been glad, but part of me had almost wished she would let Edward learn about it from her thoughts. I had no idea what Edward's reaction to my situation would be, and I was still a little afraid it might not be a good one. And if he wasn't going to be happy, I almost wished I didn't have to be the one to tell him. But this was definitely one of those days when I couldn't afford to let myself wimp out. With the life-threatening events coming up in less than three weeks, this wasn't a time to dither.

Jaime started to say more, but she had barely gotten three words out when she abruptly stopped talking. Then, when she started speaking again, it was obviously not to me.

"Hi, Nathan, I'm glad you got back to me. Have you got the fix ready?"

I remembered one of the tech guys back at the facility had been named Nathan and assumed that was who she was talking to on her built-in cell phone. She paused for a few seconds as though she was listening to the other person before speaking again.

"Yeah, she's here with me and we are alone. Let me get her on conference call with us."

Jaime turned in my direction. "That's Nathan. They have the software upgrade ready which will allow our AIs to recognize and distinguish vampires based on their lower body temperatures. Find a place to pull-over for a couple of minutes and he will push it to us."

I nodded automatically, as I started watching for a spot where the road's shoulder was wide enough for the big van. But inside I was suddenly feeling less and less human and more and more like a machine. I mean what besides computers have software updates pushed to them in the field?

As I steadily slowed the van, Jaime continued to speak into the thin air.

"Oh, Nathan, any way you can do another quick addition? Could you have the system tag any human-shaped body with a temperature between 105° and 110° as 'wolf', like you are tagging anything with a lower body temperature as 'vampire'?" After a short pause she added, "Yeah, I really did say wolf."

After covering about another half mile, we reached a small deserted roadside picnic area. I pulled in and then shut down the engine. Almost immediately the cell phone icon for an incoming call lit up in my field of view and the caller I.D. said it was from Jaime.

I blinked on the _accept_ icon, but it felt stupid to answer with _hello_ to someone sitting right next to me. So I settled on a simple, "I'm on the line."

"Okay, Nathan, we're ready for the download," I heard both directly inside my head and through my ears in a slightly out-of-phase stereo.

I don't know what I expected, maybe some burst of noise or perhaps a blinding headache, but instead after about twenty seconds I heard a male voice say, "Okay, that should do it. Although we won't know for sure if it truly works until you run into someone who triggers the new version of the _ident_ software."

"That's it?" I couldn't stop myself from blurting out.

Jaime smiled, as though she understood what I was thinking. First, it had seemed like Alice had been able to read my mind back when we had first arrived at my house. Now it almost felt like Jaime had done the same thing. Was I that easy to read?

"It was just a minor tweak to the A.I. software," explained Jaime. "It's not like they were changing anything directly in your brain."

Then she turned back to the other person on the call. "Thanks, Nathan. I'll let you know how it works. And unless something urgent comes up, I'll call in with an update on the situation here tonight, say, around ten o'clock. Bye."

"Thanks, Nathan," I echoed, feeling I had to say something, too, before disconnecting from the call.

I glanced in Jaime's direction. She didn't say anything, but merely gestured towards the road with her chin. I restarted the van and then after checking for traffic, pulled back onto the road to La Push.

Part 3

Since Jake wasn't driving a big awkward van and didn't have to pull over to the side of the road for an unexpected software update, he and Becca beat us to his place by a good fifteen minutes. When I pulled up, I could see Jake and Quil removing things from the dilapidated old shed behind the house and stacking them along one side while Becca watched. Jake's other good friend, Embry, was standing near the street at the start of the rutted track which led back towards the shed. When he waved I rolled down the driver's window.

"Hey, Vee," he began with a grin. "Jake thinks it will work best if you back the van down there. I'm here to help guide you, so you don't take down any trees. Or if you like, I can back it down there for you."

Ever since the wolves and the Cullens had trained together for the fight against Victoria's army, Embry had taken to calling me 'vampire girl' or simply 'Vee' for short. At first I had thought he had done it just to annoy me. But after my part in the battle and as the only one who took part who didn't have supernatural abilities for self-protection, his use of the term had seemed to have taken on a degree of respect. I wondered what he would think if he found out I now might be faster than him.

At one time, okay, at any time before yesterday, I might have taken him up on his offer to drive, as I certainly hadn't been renowned for my driving skills. But with my newly acquired A.I. offering guidance, I thought I was now capable of backing a van a mere eighty-seven feet. Eighty-seven feet? Range information from my position to the shed was just one tidbit of data currently hanging before my eyes.

"Thanks, Embry, but I think I'm good," I answered. Then I added with a nod towards the passenger seat. "Oh, and this is Jaime, Becca's sister."

"Hi, Jaime," Embry said in a calm self-assured tone.

Back when I had first met Jake's friends, before they had acquired their gift to transform, Embry had seemed the quietest of them all, barely able to speak to me without stuttering. But the longer they were wolves, the stronger the image of self-confidence they seemed to project. And that thought made me wonder if the same thing was going to happen to me with my new-found strength, speed, and other abilities.

"Hi, Embry," answered Jaime leaning almost across my body. "I'm glad you are able to help us unload. My sister has a lot of gear."

"Sure, no problem. Any friend of Bella's, you know."

Jaime nodded, as she straightened back up in her seat.

I'm not sure who was the most surprised, but I managed to back the van all the way to the shed on the first try. All three of the guys gave me a look like they couldn't believe I'd been able to do it. Although I think they were even more surprised when Jaime and I helped with the unloading and seemed able to handle the heaviest objects as effortlessly as they did.

We quickly had two-thirds of the van unloaded, which accounted for all of the fabrication and testing gear, leaving only the five large crates containing Becca's actual project.

Becca picked up a pry bar and headed for the first wooden crate. "Rather than lugging the heavy crates into the shed, we might as well open them here. And I want to make sure Charlotte made the trip okay, anyway."

Becca opened each box and almost lovingly pulled out each component and then carefully examined it before directing whoever was waiting next where to put it in relation to the other parts in the steadily spreading array just outside the van. The components ranged from sets of gears & pulleys & linkages, to fat bundles of electrical wires, to various sized boxes whose functions weren't readily apparent, or at least not to me.

Several times Becca paused in the unpacking to snap a few components together, but still in less than fifteen minutes all five of the crates had been emptied of their contents and Becca moved outside.

This machine, this Charlotte, was going to be surprisingly large, I thought, even larger than I had expected based on the short conversation I had had with Becca on the topic during the drive up. The pieces spread out before us had to total at least seven or eight hundred pounds.

The machine had a modular design, which seemed surprisingly simple to snap together. With the help of the three guys, Becca had it assembled in less than thirty minutes. And as it neared completion, it was obvious what it had been modeled after. But when Becca finally powered it up and it rose up to its full ten foot height, I wasn't the only one who took several steps back in some primeval terror response hardwired into the human brain.

"So," I began with a definite high pitched stutter in my voice. "I'm guessing you named it after the children's book?"

"I think Shelob from _Lord of the Rings_ would have been a more appropriate name," said Embry with more awe than fear in his voice.

"I thought about it," responded Becca with a grin. "But Shelob was supposedly _evil incarnate_ and, well, this is just a machine. There's nothing inherently evil about machines."

Becca's machine, the innocuously named Charlotte, looked like a giant mechanical spider. It had eight relatively tall spindly legs. It had a fairly bulbous body. It was close to fifteen feet in length, twelve feet wide where the longest legs touched the ground, as well as standing ten feet tall. It had a matte black finish and if it was scary here in broad daylight, it was almost impossible to imagine creeping through some foreboding woods at night.

"This is what you've been working on?" exclaimed Jaime. It was obvious she had no idea what her sister had been building.

When Becca didn't reply, Jaime touched her arm to get her attention and then repeated her remark using sign language.

"Yeah," replied Becca. "Although I will admit this is the first time I have assembled the whole thing at once. The garage back home simply didn't have enough space."

"So, this competition you have entered, it is to design a giant mechanical spider?" continued Jaime.

Becca shook her head. "No, they just had a bunch of design requirements like an 80 mph top speed over level ground, an ability to clear an eight foot vertical wall, a payload capability of 300 pounds, and a bunch of others. It was up to the designers to decide how best to meet them. I couldn't figure out how to get a wheeled design to meet all the requirements and once I decided on something with legs, a spider seemed like the best configuration."

Jake waved to get her attention and then asked in an awed tone similar to Embry's, "This thing has an 80 mile per hour top speed? What are you using for a power source?"

"Well, batteries didn't meet the range requirement and a gasoline engine didn't meet the noise requirement, so in the end I had to go a different direction."

"Like what?" persisted Jake.

"Remember the old saying, _If I told you, I would have to kill you_? Well, I'm afraid it applies in these circumstances," answered Becca with a surprisingly straight face. Then I looked closer and decided she seemed downright serious. What did that mean? WHERE had she acquired the power source?

"If the machine is finished, why did we have to lug along all the equipment?" asked Jaime slightly changing the subject.

"The machine is finished, however I haven't started testing yet. And with the challenging things it is required to do, I'm sure a few parts will break along the way and need to be repaired. And I'm sure at least a few things will have to be redesigned to fully meet all the design requirements."

Then Becca paused to walk around in front of the towering spider and began gesturing in sign language. After a few seconds, my A.I. began to provide a translation.

_Without touching any obsta__cles, move 150 feet to your right as fast as you can. Perform a 360° turn and then return to this spot._

The Spider used sign language for input? Since Becca was deaf, it must have seemed logical to her. And it would greatly limit the number of people who could give it instructions. And being able to do it shouldn't have been surprising given my A.I.'s ability to translate sign language into text.

Those thoughts were just running through my head when the giant spider began to move. Even though it was headed in the opposite direction from where we were all standing, everyone jumped back. Having Becca explain the machine had a top speed of eighty miles an hour was one thing, seeing it actually move was another. It moved scarily fast, yet still somehow managed to convey the feeling it was light on its feet as it darted around trees and other obstacles like a ballerina. At least until it reached a partially tumbled down old stone fence about seventy-five feet along its course. It seemed to pause just an instant to crouch down before leaping into the air, clearing the six foot fence by a good three feet. The ground seemed to briefly shake as it landed on the far side. Then I heard a scrabbling sound as it regained its footing on whatever rough terrain lay hidden beyond the wall.

The wall was just tall enough that I could only catch glimpses of the machine's upper surface as it continued to move away. Glancing around, I discovered Becca had climbed up on the van's tailgate so she could see passed the wall. She had an intense look of concentration on her face as she watched. Occasionally, she would nod or frown at some action of the machine.

Then, after what felt like only seconds, I saw a flash of movement in my peripheral vision. The machine had just landed back on this side of the stone fence and was rapidly scurrying back in our direction. I couldn't shake the intense sensation of fear the spiderlike machine instilled in me. I could feel my newly enhanced legs get ready to hurl me out of the way. And my secret would definitely be out of the bag if I suddenly leapt fifty feet into the air and landed on the far side of the shed.

Fortunately, the machine followed Becca's directions to the letter and stopped in the exact spot from where it had started. Although I couldn't shake the impression it was almost quivering with the desire to be instructed to do something more.

Becca jumped down from her spot up on the tailgate and began moving towards the machine. Perhaps because she had built every component, she didn't seem to have the same response to it that I had.

"Well, that was pretty good," she seemed to mumble to herself as some lingering aftereffect from when she had still had her hearing. "Only a few minor adjustments before we try something more challenging."

And staring at the girl, suddenly, the _Mad Scientist_ moniker I had mentioned earlier to Jake seemed utterly appropriate. How else would you describe someone who had just built a giant robot spider?

I don't know what it was whether it was something she said or my thoughts about Mad Scientists, but abruptly my mind jumped back to Jake's question about the machine's power source about which Becca had been so reticent to speak. And that thought made me remember the conversation the previous evening about Alice's bootstrap approach to science. Was the machine's power source an example of this? Was the whole machine's existence a result of Alice's actions? Was it part of some longer term plan of Alice's to be used against the Volturi? For the machine looked big enough, strong enough, fast enough to rip apart a vampire if it got it in its claws. When you were dealing with someone who could see possible futures, who knew what was simple coincidence and what was planned on her part.

I was about to ask Becca about Alice's involvement with the development of the machine when a notification I had set earlier flashed up into my field of view. It was now 2:10 PM and if I wanted to reach the glade where I was to meet Edward, I needed to leave now.

Quickly, I strode over to where Jaime stood still staring at the insane machine her little sister had built.

"Jaime, I need to go meet Edward. I should be back in about three hours. Will you be okay here until then?"

Jaime shook her head as though waking from a dream. "Yeah, and I doubt Becca will even notice you are gone." She paused to look back at the machine. "I had no idea she was building anything remotely like this."

As I glanced over to where the three guys were all congregated around Becca, I suddenly doubted any of them would miss me for the next few hours either.

"Okay, see you in a few," I said before turning and jogging away.

I held my pace down to near human normal until I cleared La Push and reached the surrounding forest. Then I broke into an impossibly fast run as I felt the spider machine fade from my thoughts and I focused on seeing Edward for the first time after two long, long days where my life had changed in unbelievable ways.

End of Chapter 4


End file.
